Half Life: Cooper's Last Stand
by Jack North
Summary: James Cooper, a lone survivalist in the wild will begin a Gorilla war against the combine, and it will be his last stand.


Slowly, eyes opened

Slowly, eyes opened. The pools of blue connected to sensors in the brain began to scan the man's surroundings. Roof, Walls, Floor; they were all made of steel or concrete. This must have been some sort of underground facility. The pools of blue continued to scan the room, moving over what appeared to be a close just across from where the man lay. Camouflage Jackets: Fleck Tarn, Wilderness, Snow, Desert, Urban, It was all there hanging up along with a few Guile Suits. A dresser stood at the end of this long line of Military Surplus jackets, a few of the drawers were hanging open. They were filled with camouflage clothing matching what was hanging up on the rack.

Four or five rifles leaned against the wall behind the coats and beside the dresser. The man was able to easily identify them: Winchester M94 LAR (Lever Action Rifle), AK-47, SKS Simonov, Mosin-Nagant, and an FN FAL. A scoped AR-15 lay on the floor beside the bed, a handgun likely under the very pillow the man slept upon. Slowly, the man rose from bed, picking up a pair of eye-glasses laying on the headboard and sliding them onto his face. This allowed him to get a better view of the world around him that had once been an unrecognizable blur. Surprisingly, he was still able to recognize the shape of the rifles despite the fact that they were just as blurry as everything else around them.

He yawned, sighing to himself as he picked up a pair of socks that appeared to be laying on the floor beside the AR-15. His feet became sock-covered, which were then slid into hiking boots that he quickly tied up. He stepped over the AR-15, proceeding to the closet and grabbing himself a Fleck Tarn camouflage Jacket. He had already been wearing matching pants, the man had a habit of sleeping in his clothes. His hands reached over and grasped one of the rifles; the scoped SKS. The man picked up the AR-15 and slung it around his neck, the weapon hanging freely thanks to the tactical sling, allowing him to grasp another rifle or perform tasks with his hands.

He put an Assault vest on under the camouflage jacket, allowing him to carry ammunition into the field of battle which he was planning on entering. Afterwards, he stepped over to a footlocker positioned behind his bed, lifting the lid. It was stuffed full of loaded magazines for each weapon that used them. He grabbed six loaded AR-15 magazines and stuffed them into the pockets of his assault vest, stepping over to a small desk at the other end of the room afterwards. The desk had three pouches on top of it, and there was a small footlocker directly below it. Each pouch had a label on it. He grabbed the pouch labeled 'SKS' and strapped it to his side, advancing towards the door of his bedroom. _You're forgetting something James.._ he thought, smiling as he turned towards the dresser. He reached over and grabbed a paintball mask, sliding it over his face. The glasses fit just fine under the mask, somehow; they blended into it.

he picked up a back-pack leaning against the dresser, sliding the straps onto his shoulder before lifting the hood of his jacket to cover the rest of his hood. He stepped out of his room only to be greeted by a concrete corridor, an elevator at the end of the hallway on the right. He fallowed the corridor and stepped into the elevator, pressing a random button on the control panel inside. The double-doors of the elevator slid closed as it responded to the command, the elevator lifting to the surface. Once the elevator had stopped, the doors slid open; revealing the sight of brush. Thick foliage concealed this elevator, preventing anyone from seeing it. He advanced through the foliage, pushing branches and various bits of brush out of his way.

James now stood in thick Forest, trees just as thick as the forest it self surrounded him. He stared up at the gray morning sky, detecting moisture in the air. _Its going to rain _he thought to himself, advancing to the east. Twelve paces in that direction, there was a marked-tree. It was something very subtle that the enemy wouldn't notice right off the bat. Bark had been removed, forming a circle of sorts. James kneeled down upon seeing this, sliding the back pack off of his shoulders along with the SKS. He set them both down out of the way, removing a shovel strapped to the back of the pack. Immediately, he began to dig; for about four or five minutes until he was greeted with the sound of his shovel against a metal object. Smiling, he set his shovel aside and cleared up the dirt; revealing a decently sized stainless-steel box with a keypad on it.

_4587692 _He thought as he punched in the code, the lid of the box sliding open. He smiled at the very sight of what was inside. A Carl Gustaf recoilless rocket launcher, an RPG-7, and a small wooden crate containing three different types of grenades: Smoke, Flash and fragmentation. Twelve claymore mines took up the rest of the space in the stash that was not already consumed by the ammunition for the rocket launchers and grenades. He immediately began to raid the box, stuffing pockets at the top of his assault vest with two of all three types of grenades. Afterwards, he stuffed the empty spaces of his back pack with three Rockets for the Gustaf and a series of claymores, strapping the Gustaf to his pack while he was at it. Once finished, he punched the code back into the keypad and filled the hole, sliding the straps of his now far heavier pack over his shoulders.

While his pack was open, he had grabbed a compass from its bowels and hitched it to his shirt; ensuring that he would only have to look down to check his heading, he also pulled out his Poncho and quickly dressed himself in it in preparation for incoming horrible Washington-Style weather. He advanced North for three miles before arriving at the position. Here, he planned to ambush a Combine Convoy passing through what he considered his property. Most of the time he just let them pass through for the sake of concealment until about three days ago when he caught wind of what these transports typically carried. People had been arrested, shoved into a transport convoy and then sent on their way to a train station where they would then be sent to a Combine Prison similar to the Nova Prospeckt in Russia.

He dug up another stash, gathering some last equipment for the Operation. An M249 SAW with about 400 rounds of ammunition was likely enough to cut it. His position was on the top of a slope overlooking the road below, another slope just like it on the other side. There was a single crater beside the road fallowed by some boulders going up hill on the other side. They would provide the enemy plenty of cover once the ground troops split off from the main convoy. He strategically placed motion sensor claymore mines at each position, activating them via remote once he got a safe distance.

He dug a pit at the very end of the road and filled it with Pungi Sticks. The convoy typically had a combination of the Modified Soldiers and civil protection units. Since the Civil Protection units were human, he predicted that they would likely panic once the combine soldiers retreating to cover had been blown up, attempting to escape down the road only to be greeted by a nasty pit of sharpened sticks. James strategically positioned his weaponry: digging a trench for the M249 SAW on his side of the road, then running to two other positions and leaning the SKS & AR-15 rifles against trees. Once that was completed, he unstraped his rocket launcher and loaded an 84mm round into the weapon, laying in wait for the enemy to make their appearance.

He sat in the trench he had dug for three or four hours, laying in wait with his Carl Gustaf at the ready while munching on an MRE. It was some sort of beef flavored bar, James found that it tasted better than the average freeze-dried stuff. After three or four hours of sitting there waiting, he was finally rewarded with the roar of Combine APC engines. The collum of vehicles rounded the corner and drove right into the sights of his Rocket Launcher, and of course he had timed things just right. The moment the collum of vehicles connected with his weapon's sights he squeezed the trigger, sending the rocket crashing into the lead vehicle. It immediately exploded, the 84mm round completely destroying it. He had time for a second shot before he had to carry out the second phase of his attack plan. Using that final shot, he took out the vehicle at the rear; preventing the convoy from reversing.

Immediately, he set the rocket launcher to the side and pulled out a fragmentation grenade, removing it's pin and tossing it through the air. It landed right at the feet of the first combine soldier to step out and detonated a second later. This riddled the bastard with shrapnel and threw him off his feet. Killing him and destroying his AR2 pulse rifle. James grasped the M249 held up via bipod and let a spray fly forth, gunning down a collum of soldiers that had exited the vehicles in an attempt to figure out what was going on. He gunned down a second collum and then got the hell out of there, they had to know where he was by now. Almost directly after he had left, his original position was riddled with blue projectiles. Luckily, the natural cover protected his weaponry from damage.

He sprinted a few meters or so west, grabbing his AR-15 and lining the crosshairs of the weapon's scope up with the blue pool of a combine soldier's eye. He sucked in his breath, squeezed the trigger, letting his breath back out in unison with the trigger squeeze. The 5.56 caliber round easily penetrated the eye of the mask, entering the eye-socket and penetrating the Soldier's brain killing him. Once he had been shot, his fellow soldiers split off and faded back; running directly into the claymores that he had placed to greet them. The mines detonated, tearing the shit out of the soldiers and throwing mounds of dirt into the air. By now the chicken shit metro cops that had been accompanying this group had already sprinted down the road, running straight into the Pungi-Stick pit that had been placed for them. The last thing the poor bastards heard was the screech of their own radios indicating a cease in life signs, fallowed by an unrecognizable Female voice chattering.

He slung the AR-15 over his shoulder and pulled his last Fragmentation grenade from a pocket on his Assault Vest, removing the explosive's pin and tossing it far out into the collum of vehicles just as a group of Combine Soldiers had exited out the back of a vehicle. The grenade landed at their feet then detonated almost instantly afterward, killing the second to last group of combine soldiers. After he had thrown the grenade, James sprinted past the small trench he had dug to the East and stopped where he had strategically positioned his SKS. He grabbed the scoped weapon and finished the remaining Combine Soldiers off, smiling at the taste of victory.

James shoved another ten rounds into the chamber of the SKS, reloading the weapon and slinging it over his shoulder as he advanced forth from the concealment of the wilderness up the hill. He carefully examined each of the bodies, putting another round into them if they so much as twitched. Any equipment he could use he piled up on the road along side the convoy, only to be buried and stashed with his M249 SAW so that it could be retrieved later when he wasn't carrying so much. He carefully checked the Combine APC's, gathering any extra weapons or ammunition within them and piling them up to the left of the convoy on the edge of the road.

He buried the items in strategic locations around the scene, taking only what he could carry back to base. He had piled up all of the corpses and burnt them, and stripped the combine APC's of whatever useful things he could find which he also cached to retrieve later.


End file.
